That there was a small-press festival in Minneapolis again was a big deal, and it's great that Autoptic plans another event for 2015 -- that's a wonderful comics community, and a city that will support the arts given a chance. One way to build that support is a regular event upon which the larger community can count. Besides, there's no better place in the world than summer in the upper reaches of the Midwest, so we're all going to want to go in future years.

This year, though the bigger deal was the Pierre Feuille Ciseaux workshop held before the festival (and my apologies if that's not how you describe it, or if there's a redundancy in doing so). This allowed a number of important -- and a lot of young -- cartoonists a chance to get to know each other, and work together, and learn from one another in a space that was divorced from competition and commerce. Every single creator I've talked to about that week has called it life-changing, and hopefully there will be more events and more like it in future years.